Windows 10 telemetry

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If you’ve been following the recent back-and-forth on Windows 10 snooping, Simon Bisson’s latest analysis on ZDNet is a must-read. Bottom line on Wind
[See the full post at: Windows 10 telemetry]

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Lets assume that Microsoft collects data on nearly everything we do. Right or wrong, the giant media conglomerate that is your ISP already has this data (or at least anything done via the Interwebs). So, even assuming the worst about msft, hasn’t all user data already been disseminated? Essentially, the msft snooping seems like a moot point.

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This is reassuring to me, and I’ve been one who has been loudly resistant to Win10 on both the privacy and the forced-update elements.

I’m in a difficult position at the moment. My main production Win 7 Pro desktop PC, which I use for financial transactions and tax returns and other sensitive data, needs a reformat & reinstall to resolve a problem I’m having with two photo-editing software programs I need that are not playing well together because of my use of administrator and user accounts. I can either R&R Win 7 Pro and endure an almost-endless series of updates (yes, definitely, Security Updates only) or cave and go to a clean install of Win 10 Pro which would certainly save a lot of time and aggravation–but with a cost of compromise. This ZDNet article at least makes the privacy concern less worrisome for me.

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While ISP (and DNS) snooping is a problem, if the data is encrypted (as it is in Win10), the ISP can’t look at it.

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“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if, five or ten years from now, companies collecting data on computer users will be required by US (or EU) law to give snoopies access to the snooped data – much like the regulations we have now with credit reporting agencies.”

The credit information companies do NOT issue free annual credit reports to everyone who requests them. I am a disabled person with no credit history. But Equifax and Experian refuse to acknowledge that I even exist, and will not even inform me that my file with them is a “thin file”. I have no credit score, so that is not an issue.

But Equifax, year after year, sends me letters demanding copies of my Drivers License and my Social Security Card (both sides). When I present these via mail response, they shoot back the same letter, which states that:

“The information you have presented does not match the information in our files.”

Then they refuse to give out information as to who they think I really am, and who has in their files been associated with my Drivers License and Social Security Number.

CBS Sixty Minutes did a recent expose on Equifax, and showed in graphic details how that Company, even when sued and judged against in a Court of Law, has refused to change wrong information which has damaged people’s credit scores. They would rather pay the fines and settlements than to tell the truth in their database.

Reputation Scoring and Credit Scoring is used in the US and many States to determine eligibility for insurance, rates paid, eligibility for loans and mortgages, employment decisions, car rental eligibility, and ability to keep money in brokerage and bank accounts. Google has announced that they want to use tracking and Reputation Scoring (Trust Scoring) to determine who can access our own accounts with them, and when and how often and where and on which devices or phones.

There are not three major US consumer credit reporting companies, as popular media and the FCC have duped most of us into believing. There’s a fourth company, used by many who run credit checks, which does absolutely no reporting to consumers at all, and keeps its own database of information and uses its own system of scoring. This company is not regulated under Federal and State laws.

All of this reporting, lying and scoring goes on under the current credit reporting laws in effect in the United States, and regulatory compliance by the Companies is appallingly poor.

If this is how you want Microsoft, Google, Apple and Yahoo, among others, to behave, I would like to hereby offer you exclusive ownership rights to the Brooklyn Bridge in Perpetuity, for a small price.

The existing consumer protection system is terribly broken, and the US Congress is in no mood to fix it. Laws will never protect consumer privacy, especially offenses against disabled, elderly and poor people. Only stopping using offending services and software will have any effect at all.

But trying to avoid commercial OSes and software doesn’t solve the privacy invasion problem either. Just look at how Canonical spies on Ubuntu users if you want proof of that.

With all the influence which the data mining companies and advertising businesses have over American political campaign contributions, I doubt that we will ever see a return to Liberty and truly private lives in this country. That is a shame, but it is the reality of living in the Information Age.

Information is the currency and we all are a mere commodity.

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We don’t need Windows 10 to encrypt data and if you’re running a VPN (which IMHO everyone should, with certain exceptions like banking, then your ISP can’t see anything.

Microsoft has stepped over the line!

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One more detail.

TransUnion does report to me every year. They do have a few items (mostly unsolicited credit inquiries) on me.

Which makes Equifax’s behavior all the more disturbing.

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The amount of data seems to be a puny lot. But did I read right or not? Didn’t the ZDNet article say that the data was collected on a PC over night that was inactive (not in use, just left running). That would mean no searches, no Internet activity, no programs started of running, no messaging or email, etc. wouldn’t it?

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130KB of data may not seem like much, but if it’s compressed as well as encrypted, as seems likely for efficient transmission, that could potentially equate to several hundred of pages of text at a time.

Suddenly, the data mining going on doesn’t seem so small after all. Of course, without knowing exactly what is being sent and how it’s being used, there will always be suspicion about this.

I know what Microsoft says about all this, but I no longer trust them to tell users the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

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Then it sounds like MS is making a power grab with win10. Encrypt the data so they are the only ones to have it? Genius for them – but doesn’t help me if they’re my credit card and banking data. But AT&T, who has been grabbing for a decade+, isn’t looking into my personal folders stored on my computer- at least I didn’t think so.

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Let’s face it: The credit reporting agencies are traffickers in unsubstantiated opinion, which if expressed by individuals would bring a defamation suit. Those who research the process of correcting erroneous reports will soon find that when sued the agencies are seldom able to produce the documentation required by federal law, and usually slink away after paying the $1,000 fine. The fine is merely the price of continuing to engage in an immoral and illegal business model.

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Simon Bisson writes: “That means for a PC with a standard load, logged into a Microsoft account and using Windows 10’s messaging service, we’re sending around 190 packets per hour to Microsoft servers, and around 130KB of data per hour.”

Is it just me, or is 130 kbytes of data per hour being discounted as trivial here?

Perhaps I’m just old school, but 130 kbytes is huge. That’s several megabytes a day.

Well duh, several megabytes is way less than the total network traffic on a gigabit network. But it’s not insignificant!

Mr. Bisson shouldn’t kid himself nor mislead his readers – even a packet with no data that’s sent as a result of, say, a user login is a serious breach of Privacy. Now someone somewhere knows where you are and when! Remember when getting a phone call where someone would just hang up was suspicious?

With Win 10 privacy has become a public concern – AS IT SHOULD BE – although to be honest Win 8 did just as much chatting online (and all the more with Microsoft’s latest updates).

Perhaps Windows 8.1 did even more spilling of beans than 10, considering all the good privacy tools now available for Win 10 (not to mention Microsoft’s own tidying up of the deck) because of all the scrutiny.

Don’t become numb to this, people! It’s serious.

-Noel

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Hi Woody,

It is a minor and pedantic point, but I would suggest that instead of the spelling “snoopies”, the spelling “snoopees” (or “snoop-ees”) might be better, because generally the suffix in those circumstances is spelled “-ee”. (E.g., employee, devotee, refugee.)

Assuming I could easily find grammar advice on this, I typed a few search terms into a search engine and ended up finding only one link that discusses the “-ee” suffix — it is at:
http://www.english-for-students.com/ee.html.

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“snoopees” it is. Point well taken.

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But they don’t stop giving out the false information. Review the CBS Sixty Minutes report.

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I decided when I saw that ton be polite and not comment on the trivial error.

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Trivial error? All errors gratefully acknowledged…

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@rc primak,

I do generally wish to be polite, and/but I see it as being polite to point out to an accomplished writer whom I esteem a potential spelling error, however minor it is.

I had a feeling that Woody wouldn’t take offence, and it doesn’t seem that he did.

Though, he hasn’t yet changed the spelling in the original piece above.

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Naw, I always appreciate corrections.

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